1. General Statement of Intent
Evergreen Dental Staffing Agency ("Evergreen Dental") is committed to ensuring the health, safety, and welfare of all its agency workers, internal staff, client practice personnel, and patients. Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and associated UK statutory regulations, Evergreen Dental recognises its responsibility to provide safe operational procedures, robust compliance screening, and clear communication channels to help manage workplace hazards and reduce the risk of injury or ill-health.
For new assignments using the health and safety declaration, practices provide known risks, control measures, additional PPE and its provider, and specific equipment, software, training or authorisation requirements. These may concern radiography, sedation, implants, orthodontics or specialist environments. Practices can declare no known assignment-specific risks beyond normal work risks, or describe known risks. The declaration applies prospectively; earlier shifts are not treated as having completed it.
2. Roles & Responsibilities
Health and safety management is a shared responsibility between Evergreen Dental, host dental practices, and placed agency personnel:
- Evergreen Dental Management: Responsible for compliance screening and communicating relevant assignment safety information to workers, with acknowledgement and audit records where the feature is used. Where supported, workers can review the information before accepting. The platform may record acceptance, acknowledgements, timestamps and declaration versions. Later updates may prompt notification and renewed acknowledgement; an audit record is not a guarantee of receipt. Evergreen does not inspect every workplace or guarantee workplace safety.
- Host Dental Practices (Clients): Responsible for workplace-specific risk assessments, safe systems of work, induction, appropriate PPE and workplace controls, including emergency procedures and local radiation safety rules. Practices must keep assignment information accurate and communicate material changes.
- Agency Workers (Dental Nurses & Receptionists): Responsible for taking reasonable care of their own health and safety, adhering to HTM 01-05 decontamination protocols, utilising provided PPE, and immediately reporting any hazards or unsafe practice conditions.
3. Clinical Compliance & Immunisations
To support safe placement and infection-control arrangements, Evergreen may ask clinical personnel for proportionate occupational-health and immunisation evidence appropriate to the role and assignment. Health information is special-category data. Evergreen restricts it to personnel with a genuine need to know and does not routinely provide a practice with reports, titres or records.
- Hepatitis B Immunity: Where the role and risk assessment make it necessary, Evergreen may verify that required Hepatitis B evidence or appropriate non-responder arrangements have been reviewed. A practice should normally receive only a minimum necessary compliance or fitness-status confirmation, not underlying laboratory results.
- Occupational Health Vetting: Evidence of immunisations or screening (including Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Tuberculosis where appropriate) may be reviewed during onboarding or before a specific assignment. The applicable Article 6 basis, Article 9 condition and any DPA 2018 requirement must be documented before this information is used or disclosed.
- Fitness to Work: Workers should tell Evergreen about a material limitation that affects their ability to perform an accepted assignment safely, using the appropriate confidential route. Evergreen will assess what, if anything, must be communicated to the practice; the default is a minimum necessary fitness, adjustment or restriction statement rather than a diagnosis.
Practice recipients and safeguards: a host practice may receive a limited confirmation that a stated assignment requirement has been met, a restriction, or an adjustment needed for safe working, only where necessary and lawful. It must be accessed only by authorised personnel, held securely, used only for the assignment and deleted or returned when no longer needed. Full occupational-health records and DBS certificates are not routine booking documents.
4. HTM 01-05 & Decontamination Standards
Cross-infection prevention is critical in dental surgery environments. All locum dental nurses placed by Evergreen Dental are required to adhere strictly to the guidelines set out in Health Technical Memorandum 01-05 (HTM 01-05) :
- Strict adherence to hand hygiene techniques, clinical handwashing, and bare-below-the-elbows policies in treatment areas.
- Proper utilisation and disposal of single-use items and appropriate sterilisation protocols for reusable clinical instruments.
- Correct segregation, handling, and disposal of clinical waste, sharp objects, and dental amalgam in compliance with environmental and hazardous waste regulations.
- Use of appropriate PPE, including fluid-resistant surgical masks, eye protection/visors, disposable gloves, and clinical aprons.
5. Sharps Safety & Inoculation Injury Protocol
In accordance with the Health and Safety (Sharp Instruments in Healthcare) Regulations 2013 :
- Host practices must provide safer sharps devices wherever reasonably practicable.
- In the event of a needlestick or inoculation injury, workers must immediately follow the host practice’s local emergency needle-stick protocol (e.g. encouragement of bleeding under running water, washing with soap, and immediate reporting to the practice Principal or Practice Manager).
- Assistance and urgent Occupational Health assessment or A&E attendance must be sought without delay for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) evaluation. All incidents must be logged with Evergreen Dental within 24 hours.
6. Incident Reporting & RIDDOR
All accidents, near-misses, dangerous occurrences, or cases of work-related ill health occurring during an assignment must be reported immediately to the host Practice Manager and to Evergreen Dental management.
Where an accident falls under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) , Evergreen Dental and the host practice will cooperate fully to ensure the incident is reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) within prescribed statutory deadlines.
7. Policy Review & Monitoring
This policy is reviewed annually or following any significant change in healthcare legislation, CQC regulatory guidance, or internal operational structure to maintain maximum efficacy and clinical compliance.
Evergreen Dental Staffing Agency
Last Updated: September 2026